I just don't understand why we keep discussing bunker styling like it's so important. You might as well be discussing hairstyles for all I care. It hasn't got a thing to do with the design or playability of the course.
Maybe they should call themselves stylists.
Tom,
In principle I agree with you, but there's a bit more to it than that. Form follows function, but aesthetics play a large role in design, even if they are subservient to functionality/usability/playability. That's one of the primary reasons (in theory) for hiring an architect. Otherwise engineers would build everything and I sure as hell don't want to live in a world like that!
Suppose you had a spectrum with engineers on one side and artists on the other -- an architect should be somewhere in the middle, navigating a cohesive balance of form and function.
With golf there're other important implications, namely management practices, which influence maintenance budgets and ultimately the cost of golf for the consumer. If you'd like we could do an exercise to calculate annual labor costs related to different bunker styles and I think the difference would be quite substantial. Of course Augusta is exempt from that discussion, but the trend they set influences golf around the world -- the "Augusta effect" is a real thing!
But all that aside, at the end of the day you mean to tell me you don't have a personal aesthetic preference one way or the other? Use the fairway bunker on No. 10 as an example:
